Aquaculture and Fisheries (Scotland) Bill call for views

The Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee is seeking views from organisations and individuals on the general principles of the Aquaculture and Fisheries (Scotland) Bill which the Scottish Government introduced on 3 October 2012.

The aims of the legislation as set out in the Policy Memorandum is to ‘ensure that farmed and wild fisheries – and their interactions with each other – continue to be managed effectively, maximising their combined contribution to supporting sustainable economic growth with due regard to the wider marine environment.’

The Bill has six parts and two schedules (the final part containing general provisions including interpretation, commencement and short title) and the Committee will focus its scrutiny on each of these distinct parts.

Part 1 of the Bill is concerned with fish farm management and seeks to improve related regulations, mainly by amending the Aquaculture and Fisheries (Scotland) Act 2007.

Part 2 deals with salmon and freshwater fisheries and largely amends the Salmon and Freshwater Fisheries (Consolidation) (Scotland) Act 2003, particularly in relation to governance by District Salmon Fisheries Boards (DSFBs) and management of salmon fisheries.

Part 3 deals with sea fisheries and brings Scotland into line with the rest of the UK in terms of marine enforcement powers.

Part 4 deals with shellfish and amends the 2003 Act to insert provisions relating to the protection of shellfish growing waters.

Part 5 deals with charging and fixed penalty notices. It provides for Ministers to introduce charges for functions relating to aquaculture, freshwater fisheries and sea fisheries. The Bill also widens the cases in which Marine Scotland can issue Fixed Penalty Notices.

Responding to this call for views

To help the Committee in its scrutiny of the general principles of the Bill, the Committee is asking for views from organisations and individuals with an interest or involvement in the proposals contained in the Bill and their likely impact. As the Bill has quite distinctive parts as outlined above, there is no requirement to provide comments on every part of the Bill, you are free to restrict your response to the parts most relevant to your area of interest.

Timetable

The deadline for responding to this call for views is Monday 26 November 2012.

The Committee will take evidence on the Bill in late November, December and will conclude its evidence taking with the Minister in early January 2013.

On behalf of the Committee, thank you for your assistance.

Nick Hawthorne Senior Assistant Clerk

Further background information

Prior to the introduction of the Bill, the Scottish Government consulted on the possible contents of a draft bill and received 1,342 responses. The Scottish Government published a response to the consultation detailing how it planned to take forward the parts of the consultation that are not in the Bill.

Details of the responses and the analysis of the responses can be found on the Scottish Government’s website at the following links: